Home Office

Slavery: Commonwealth

baroness doocey: To ask Her Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the use of false and fraudulently obtained documents to facilitate trafficking and modern slavery from Commonwealth countries to the UK via visa entry clearance.

baroness williams of trafford: HMG undertakes regular assessment of threats to the UK immigration system. No specific assessment has been made relating to the use of false and fraudulently obtained documents to facilitate trafficking and modern slavery from Commonwealth countries.

Human Trafficking: Asia

baroness doocey: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any systematic abuse of the UK Tier 4 visa system to facilitate trafficking of children and young adults to the UK from Vietnam and China.

baroness williams of trafford: Her Majesty’s Government complete regular assessments of the threats posed to the UK Visa and Immigration system and Human Trafficking.In response to an identified threat, it has been assessed that the Tier 4 student route is associated with a small proportion of non compliant or abusive Vietnamese migrants a small number being referred to the NRM as potential victims of trafficking.No specific assessment has been conducted in relation to Chinese students because the threat is currently assessed as being low with high levels of visa compliance within the Tier 4 route.

Passports

lord forsyth of drumlean: To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer byBaroness Williams of Trafford on 5 April (HL6634), how they calculated their announced savings to the taxpayer by changing the supplier of UK passports; and what that figure represents as the unit cost per passport.

baroness williams of trafford: As part of the procurement process, all bidders were evaluated against their individual pricing proposal. We are able to confirm that the cost of the new contract will be considerably lower than the current contract and underlines our commitment to deliver value for money to our passport customers and the tax payer. We are unable to break this down to the unit cost per passport as the volume of passports over the lifespan of the new contract is variable and subject to fluctuations.

Common Travel Area

lord stevenson of balmacara: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to introduce (1) passport checking, and (2) body searches, at UK ports for nationals of Common Travel Area countries; and whether the introduction of such changes would require new legislation.

baroness williams of trafford: All passengers, including British and Irish nationals, on scheduled services into UK ports from outside of the Common Travel Area (CTA) are subject to checks on arrival. British and Irish nationals arriving in the UK from within the CTA do not pass through immigration controls, though may be included in intelligence-led border security checks. This is in line with the existing CTA arrangements between the UK, Ireland and the Crown Dependencies and the UK’s legal framework as set out in the Immigration Act 1971. The Government has been clear that it intends to maintain the CTA. The introduction of routine immigration controls would require legislative change.

Department for International Development

Department for International Development: Databases

lord harris of haringey: To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of the Department for International Development'sdata is hosted (1) in the UK, and (2) overseas.

lord bates: The percentage of DFID Data hosted in the UK and Overseas is detailed below: (1) Percentage of DFID data hosted in the UK is 96.5%.(2) Percentage of DFID data hosted overseas is 3.5%.

Ministry of Defence

Special Forces

baroness cox: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will clarify the basis of their policy of not commenting on the operations of British Special Forces; and what is their assessment ofthe extent to whichthat policyis compatible with the principle of parliamentary scrutiny.

earl howe: It is this Government's, and previous Governments', policy not to comment, and to dissuade others from commenting or speculating, about the operational activities of Special Forces because of the security implications. To prevent the inadvertent confirmation or otherwise of any information or assertion the approach has been to neither confirm nor deny, and to decline to comment when questions concerning Special Forces are posed. This is entirely compatible with the principle of Parliamentary scrutiny, which is exercised through Ministerial oversight of Special Forces operations.

Syria: Military Intervention

lord hylton: To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of deaths and serious injuries caused by the Western military attacks in Syria on 14 April; and whether depleted uranium was included in weapons launched by the Royal Air Force.

earl howe: All assessments of the operation on 14 April have demonstrated that no civilian casualties were caused by UK strikes. No weapons used by the RAF in this operation contained depleted uranium.

Syria: Military Intervention

lord truscott: To ask Her Majesty's Government, what is their objective for military action against Syria.

earl howe: The objective for our targeted strike on 14 April was to degrade the Syrian regime's chemical weapons programme and to deter the further use of these weapons against their own population. It was not about regime change.

Military Decorations

lord west of spithead: To ask Her Majesty's Government on what basis were gold and diamond jubilee medals struck and issued to past Heads of Service who were not honorary 5 stars.

earl howe: Golden and Diamond Jubilee medals were made available to those who had held the appointment of Chief of the Defence Staff, Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, single Service Chief and Commander Joint Forces Command.